Robert Pirsig, 1928 – 2017

by | Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of those books that have influenced me deeply. I read it when I was in high school and read it again and again, almost obsessively for a while. It was my companion through college, graduate school and beyond. I assigned sections from it in my master’s and doctoral courses. This is a book that changed me, and its impact on my thinking resonates even today.

Robert Prisig died yesterday. I owe him, and his ideas, a great debt. In his homage, are two images I created today, once I heard the new, from one of my favorite quotes from the book.

languageart-001
languageart-002

Note: I edited the quote a bit when I created the designs. The complete (and accurate quote) is “The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or as the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.”

A few randomly selected blog posts…

ZIPskinny

Just found out about this website www.zipskinny.com, a great example of how the web makes information easily available. This website allows you to enter your US zip code, and see US Census data and comparisons with neighboring ZIP codes (or other ZIP codes, upto to 20...

Visually representing a song

How can anybody resist this flowchart / visual representation of Hey Jude! Check it out. Don't you just hear the song as you move through the boxes and arrows.

Cellphone in classrooms: The Saline story

From the Saline Schools, right here in Michigan, comes a video about how teachers and students are using cellphone in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning. Check it out h/t Superintendent Scot Graden's Blog

Obama’s gmail account

Did you know that any email sent to barackobama@gmail.com goes to an Indian software developer! Strange but true!

The utopian/dystopian futures of online learning: New book chapter

The utopian/dystopian futures of online learning: New book chapter

I was invited to wrote a chapter for an edited book titled "The future of online education," edited by Stephen Paul McKenzie, Lilani Arulkadacham, Jennifer Chung and Zahra Aziz. It was an opportunity for me and my co-authors Melissa Warr and Ben Scragg to engage in...

Math Concepts by Gaurav Bhatnagar

Gaurav Bhatnagar is one of my oldest friends - going back to 8th grade in Modern School, Barakhamba Road. He recently published his first book on Mathematics for kids, titled, Get Smart: Maths Concepts, published by Penguin India. The book also has an associated blog...

A great honor: 10 most influential people in Ed Tech

I just found out that I made "The Big 10: The Most Influential People in EdTech for 2011." This list is created by the Tech & Learning journal—a magazine for Ed Tech leaders. This news came  as a total surprise to me since I did not know that I was even in the...

A published poet! Yes!

I am now, officially, a published poet!             My poem on imaginary numbers (The Mathematical "i") was published in the March 2013 issue of At Right Angles, a school mathematics journal.  You can read my poem on my website here: The Mathematical "i" You can...

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *